Huehuecoyotl is my new best friend…

My gorgeous four poster bed in Merida…note the mosquito net

Doesn’t it look gorgeous?  The tiles are original from the 17th century mansion.  The French owners have recently created this boutique hotel and coordinated everything with the tiles.  The back wall is the palest dove gray as is the new futon beside the bed.  The lamps were made of local limestone and I am taking the photograph from the stairs (yes two levels) in my suite leading to the brand new bathroom.  It was exquisitely designed with local stone in the huge shower.

So far, so good, eh?  The bed was rather hard but the bedding was lovely.  The mosquito net was not for decoration and the fumigator turned up on the second day (it smells of roses, Senorita…).  I look like I have had measles.  Eventually I caught one of the little f***ers and my blood oozed out of it.  The exquisite shower had only cold water.  On one fortuitous occasion I had a tepid shower – yay!  I was offered three other rooms which barely had a trickle of still cold water and realized I had the best room.  My French fellow guests had a trickle of cold water for their whole stay. Dirty froggies…🐸.  I know that is terribly un PC but it’s one of my resolutions.

The menu was translated by French people into English and they need not have bothered.  There is a local Maya language spoken and I have no idea what the menu said.  I ate dessert and breakfast with unidentifiable fruit.  I rarely spoke English to anyone.  Everyone at the hotel spoke French including the staff.  My driver’s English was as good as my Spanish and yet we talked for hours each day.  Google Translate helped with certain words until we were out of cell phone range.

THIS WAS THE BEST VACATION EVER!!!  I don’t know why but I loved every second of it, even my Eco toilet which means no paper down the drain (there was a little lidded bucket for the poo smeared paper).  It felt like glamping or glhostelling.  The day before I left I had received bad news about four friends with health and other problems.  I was so upset that I momentarily considered not going.  The saddest news was the death of our fellow blogger Pan otherwise known as Linda, beautifully memorialized by John Ray and Osyth. If you click on John and Osyth’s names you will see their posts about Linda. My head still has an image of her dog guarding her dead body for two days.

My mental health must be stronger than I imagined and I decided that life really was too short.  I compartmentalized all my bad news, got on the plane and prayed at every church that I saw in Merida.  I got lost twice in the pitch black but kept finding churches so perhaps Huehuecoyotl had an auspicious plan.  The beauty of nature and the kind, warm people of the Yucatan soothed my soul and provided much needed balm.  I have many stories to tell but I have a busy week helping friends and doing paid work so it may be a week or so before I share more.

I climbed a pyramid!

This is a shot from Mayapan, a huge Maya city that has NO tourists! My various DNA tests did not show that I am part mountain goat…all those years hill-climbing with my school friends, Katharine and AnneMarie have left me with a core strength. There was a small group of local school teenagers who struggled to keep up with me…

Most importantly, may Linda rest in peace. She was a loyal, funny and delightful blogger friend that I will miss.

Huehuecoyotl is mischief making…

Courtesy of Pixabay

Huehuecoyotl is one of the many Pre Colombian Gods of Mexico.  The translation is very old coyote.  He is an auspicious God and is generally beneficent but can be a prankster.  I have decided that he will now be my spirit guide when I go to Mexico next week.  He has already started mischief making…

After my amazing list of resolutions, (I have done more than one #2 every day – yippee), I have a short gap before my first work contract and have decided to go to Merida in the Yucatan next week.  It’s a solo visit – I don’t think Teddy is ready for one of my Spanish speaking, taking the local bus and arguing with taxi driver trips.  My last trip to Merida was a disaster but despite that I longed to return in more clement weather.

Booking the flight was easy.  I used air miles and there were a few seats left.  The flight is just over 2 hours so there are many commuters back and forth between Texas and Mexico.  One of the problems with my last trip was that I was staying in a beautiful old building with all the problems that come with that.  This time I decided to choose a generic chain hotel so that at least there is another room to go to…

Huehuecoyotl had arranged for British Airways to send me an email reminding me that I had to use my Avios points.  Ah ha, thought Kerry, I can book a hotel in Merida and save money.  I chose the Wyndham but when I received the final confirmation, I realized that they had not used my points and cash but just cash.  Wily Coyote!  The only option was to phone British Airways.  They have a free number in the States but you are speaking to someone in England.   A very nice lady with a well enunciated English dialect answered the phone promptly – wow! It was such a relief to speak to someone who immediately understood my accent.  I have no idea what the problem is in the USA – I speak clearly and you have all watched Braveheart/Outlander, haven’t you???

As soon as I explained what had happened, she indicated that it would be complicated to sort out so I would be on the phone for a while.  One hour…but at least it was free.  Long story shorter, the first booking had to be cancelled and then she attempted to do it again.  Coyote was having fun because there were two Merida Wyndhams on the BA website, one in lower case and one in upper case.  I assured my new friend that there was only one Wyndham hotel even though they had different addresses!

Right in the middle of all this, my gardeners arrived.  I apologized and said I would have to carry the phone outside while I spoke to them. “Hola! Como Esta”, “Bien, y Usted?”  Then there was some bad Spanish when I tried to explain that I needed a brick stand for the Casa de Gatta (Katniss).  The nice lady said, “Do you live in Mexico?”  Well, if you ask a Trump voter, they might say yes, but really we live in the bilingual metropolis of Houston.  I used eastern Europeans in England as an example.  New immigrants always do the jobs that no one else wants to do.

Back to the strange website; neither the UPPER CASE nor lower case Wyndham would take my money or booking.  Likely they had no rooms left – welcome to Mexico!  Finally I decided that I would just completely cancel all bookings with British Airways and ponder what to do next.  The nice lady was very apologetic and had even reduced the price before I was banished from that hotel.  We bid each other goodbye and I wondered if she was going to tell someone about her strange conversation.  What was even funnier, in the middle of all of this, Toffee had a poo (great resolution) in her litter box and started caterwauling for me to clean it stat!  She was so loud that I had to apologize for that noise whilst escaping to the other side of the house with computer and phone to get away from the noise of the gardeners.

So, I sat thinking about a possibly ill-fated trip but was so amused by the whole situation that I decided to just do a Booking.com.  They allow you to cancel close to the trip time and you don’t pay until after you arrive.  They were problematic the last time (my hotel was not available and didn’t find out until the night before).  Maybe Huehuecoyotl would help out?  I chose the first one that had a great review and it is a 17^th century mansion – uh oh.  The hotel immediately confirmed my booking in Spanish – excellente and it is so beautiful that I could just photograph that building.

I am going next week and Teddy is looking after the gattas.  Wish me luck and hope that my puppy God wants to play nice.